Roman Blood by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online Page B

against Rome? He comes from Ameria, a village that waits until the last moment to join the revolt, then reaps the first fruits of the reconciliation; that's how he became a citizen. Civil war between Marius and Sulla, then between Sulla and Cinna? The old man wavers in his loyalty—a realist and an opportunist like most Romans these days—and emerges like the delicate maiden who traverses a raging stream by hopping from stone to stone without even getting her sandals wet. Those who have no opinions are the only people safe today. A rabbit, I tell you. If you leave it to politics to put him in danger, he'll live to be a hundred."
    "Surely he can't be as vapid as you describe. Every man takes risks these days just by being alive. You say he's a landowner, with interests 35

    in Rome. He must be a client to some influential family. Who are his patrons?"
    Cicero laughed. "Even there he choses the blandest, safest possible family to ally himself with—the Metelli. Sulla's in-laws—or at least they were until Sulla divorced his fourth wife. And not just any of the Metelli, but the oldest, the most inert, and endlessly respectable of its many branches. Somehow or other he ingratiated himself to Caecilia Metella.
    Have you ever met her?"
    I shook my head.
    " Y o u will," he said mysteriously. " N o , politics will never kill this old man for you. Sulla may fill up the Forum with heads on sticks, the Field of Mars may become a bowl of blood tipping into the Tiber—you'll still find the old man traipsing about after dark in the worst parts of town, stuffed from a dinner party at Caecilia's, blithely on his way to the neighborhood whorehouse."
    Cicero abruptly sat down. The machine, it seemed, needed an occasional rest, but the cracked instrument continued to play. " S o you see that fate will not cooperate in taking the odious old man off your hands.
    Besides, it may be that there's some urgent reason that you want him dead—not just hatred or a grudge, but some crisis immediately at hand.
    You have to take action yourself."
    " Y o u suggest that I murder my own father?"
    "Exactly."
    "Impossible."
    " Y o u must."
    " U n - R o m a n ! "
    "Fate compels y o u . "
    "Then—poison?"
    He shrugged. "Possibly, if you had the proper access. But you're not an ordinary father and son, coming and going in each other's household.
    There's been some bitterness between you. Consider: The old man has his own town house here in Rome, and seldom sleeps anywhere else. You live at the old family home in Ameria, and on the rare occasions when business brings you into the city, you never sleep in your father's house.
    You stay with a friend instead, or even at an inn—the quarrel between you runs that deep. So you don't have easy access to the old man's dinner before he eats it. Bribe one of his servants? Unlikely and highly uncertain—in a family divided, the slaves always chose sides. They'll be far more loyal to him than to you. Poison is an unworkable solution."
    36

    The yellow curtain rippled. A gust of warm air slipped beneath its hem and entered the room like a mist clinging low to the ground. I felt it pool and eddy about my feet, heavy with the scent of jasmine. The morning was almost over. The true heat of the day was about to begin. I suddenly felt sleepy. So did Tiro; I saw him stifle a yawn. Perhaps he was simply bored. This was probably not the first time that he had heard his master run through the same string of arguments, refining his logic, worrying over the particular polish and gloss of each phrase.
    I cleared my throat. "Then the solution seems obvious, esteemed Cicero. If the father must be murdered—at the instigation of his own son, a crime almost too hideous to contemplate—then it should be done when the old man is most vulnerable and most accessible. Some moonless night, on his way home from a party, or on his way to a brothel. No witnesses at that hour, at least none who'd be eager to testify. Gangs roaming the streets.